'Arrow' EP on Roy's big episode, how Summer Glau became Ravager

Roy Harper is going to find himself spinning out of control in a way we have never seen on Arrow.

It’s been a long time coming, though. In the last few episodes, the Mirakuru’d lone wolf has put considerable effort into keeping himself in check as the anger-stirring serum courses through his veins. Wednesday night’s episode marks a major milestone in Roy’s evolution into Rage Roy, a path that has been anything but easy to craft, Arrow executive producer Andrew Kreisberg says. “That’s probably been one of the hardest things in the writers room to manage – what happens to you when you’re Mirakuru’d,” he told EW. “Some people in the writers room have tried to be, ‘Well, if it’s been two months, you’re at this level. And if it’s been three months, you’re at this level. And what’s Slade at when you’re at five years?’ We’ve tended to err on what was right for the episode.”

“At the end of the day,” he jokes, “they’ve [all] been injected with Sci-Fi, magic super evil juice.” Isabel (Summer Glau) among them. But that wasn’t always the plan, Kreisberg reveals.

“Isabel was the one thing we weren’t entirely sure about as we were developing the season,” he says. “Truthfully, there was a very early iteration of the series where Sarah (Caity Lotz) started the season as Ravager. And then we switched over. … Part of the reason Isabel disappeared for a while is because we still weren’t sure which way to go – whether she should be an ally or a villain.”

That decision was ultimately made when Kreisberg envisioned a scene in which they revealed “this triumvirate of evil” (which would also include Slade and Sebastian Blood), and it was too cool of a mental picture to pass up. “Once that happened, I knew there was no way she was not going to be Ravager.”

Though she doesn’t play a prominent part in this week’s episode, Kreisberg assures that we’ve only seen a taste of Glau’s infamous fighting skills. “One of the things we’re most proud of is the casting – and not just the regulars, and obviously our regulars are amazing. But I feel our guest cast – between Caity Lotz and Katrina Law and Kevin Alejandro and Summer – this show is constantly populated with these great people who are also bringing with them their baggage. And I don’t mean that in a bad way; I mean it in a good way. As soon as you see Katrina Law, you think, ‘Oh yeah, I should be afraid of her. She’s from Spartacus.’” The same applied to Glau, he said. “It’s funny, because we were talking about this in the writers room, some of the writers were like, ‘When she just starts kicking ass, aren’t people going to be like, What the f—?’ and I’m like, ‘No. They’re going to be, like, Why wasn’t she doing this sooner? It’s Summer Glau; that’s what she does.’ I think it worked out really well.”